[Official] Rate the Grand Prix: European Grand Prix 2016

[GTRMagic]

I liked it.. the cars had to go left & right under load, they had to slide around, they had to go like stink in a straight line.

Pretty scenery to look at..

9

[FAS33]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

If the race was as bad as Le Mans then we would have had, say, Button or Sainz or Perez lead the entire race until the last 20 seconds (yep I did the math) as he pulls over to the side of the road and Rosberg/Hamilton cross the line first.

Hard out. Le Mans makes the Baku GP look like the best race of 2016.

[chillibowl]

there is potential here but unfortunately we didnt see it this year. below average 4.

[dsg]

I really liked the track and once the teething problems are resolved it will be better. Don't mind it being called the European GP as it is near enough. Unfortunately all the drivers behaved themselves and acted in a professional manner so he race was fairly boring as can be the case. 5

[MagnetON]

3 - After the GP2 races I was really, really expecting an excellent race. Denied

[TrapezeArtist]

5. I thought the track was pretty good for a street circuit: much better than Monaco, and although I found the narrow bit pretty odd I really didn't mind it.

Unfortunately it was a pretty boring race even though the commentators were hyping up the likelihood of crashes and safety cars. However, crashes and safety cars could have spoilt the race so I think the "blame" lies with the racing (lack of). Sometimes races work out like that.

Clearly the race would never have happened without an eye-watering amount of money passing into the possession of BE and CVC. Nevertheless it was an interesting circuit that suffered a few teething problems and a total lack of interest from the locals. The name, of course, was nonsensical:you might just as well run two races in Britain and call one the Grand Prix of Scandinavia.

[GT6]

Well seems like most people not keen but i enjoyed it plenty of overtaking and that is what i want to see so gave it 6

[BtccLee]

Decent race, pretty circuit, title fight re-ignited. 6.

[Mekola]

6. And I'm generous.

[JohnD]

As usual with anywhere not in Europe, the few grandstands were not full, even the one opposite the pits. AND, this was a city circuit, with blocks of apartments lining the track, almost nobody out on the balconies watching. Nobody either behind the screens, the central square with fountains next to the long straight was deserted, I saw one view - there was a ?church just off the track - where a few residents were idly strolling, obviously not interested.

But if families that inherit the Presidency want to pay Bernie shed loads of money and make nothing on ticket sales, who cares. Except French and German fans, who have no GP this year.
John

[chillibowl]

yeah hardly anyone out on their balconies or on the rooftops...struck me as odd as well.

seriously where were all the people? are those buildings nothing more than empty spaces?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

yeah hardly anyone out on their balconies or on the rooftops...struck me as odd as well.

seriously where were all the people? are those buildings nothing more than empty spaces?

There's no grass roots motorsport in Azerbaijan, so I'm not surprised. It will be like Turkey all over again.

[JohnD]

Or Bahrain, China and Abu Dhabi.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JohnD

Or Bahrain, China and Abu Dhabi.

India, S. Korea, spring to mind. Bernie had to do a deal with China because they wanted out, as the GP was haemorrhaging money.

[chillibowl]

sure, they may not have a willingness to pay for an F1 race ticket but you would think that more people would still poke their heads out onto their balconies on a nice day to take a look see at a spectacle happening in their own neighbourhood and literally right outside their own windows.

i liked the track and think it has potential but they really need to start looking at venues that can guarantee a minimum number of live spectators imo.

[chillibowl]

well China, India, S.Korea, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Russia at least hope(d) to get more people out to their race as they took the novel approach of actually building seating around their track so you know that at least counts for something.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

well China, India, S.Korea, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Russia at least hope(d) to get more people out to their race as they took the novel approach of actually building seating around their track so you know that at least counts for something.

The Koreans had to bus people in and if you watch the Chinese GP there are noticeably empty seats.

I thought Mike Harte summed up the situation perfectly in this post, #57 on the [Official] European Grand Prix 2016: Grand Prix Weekend Thread.

[sparkione]

[QUOTE=Razzzor;3653632] It's definitely not the tracks fault, it's F1's for this dullfest.

Indeed, and primarily due to the FIA's asinine ruling about team/driver radio comms. Lewis was mullered by Merc's mistake with his engine mode and ended up driving around at 200mph, inches from some very solid looking walls, trying to figure out which bloody knob to adjust. Utterly, eye-swivelingly insane.

When Fangio won the classic 1957 German GP at the Ring he had three pedals, a gear lever and a steering wheel (with no knobs on it) to think about – as well as the two Lancia-Ferraris up ahead, of course. Now, they're bloody spaceships. We want drivers concentrating on DRIVING, not playing stupid bloody computer games!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

The Koreans had to bus people in and if you watch the Chinese GP there are noticeably empty seats.

I thought Mike Harte summed up the situation perfectly in this post, #57 on the [Official] European Grand Prix 2016: Grand Prix Weekend Thread.

he did indeed, although i would add that it also serves the sizable commercial interests of the teams. either indirectly via an increase in the size of the prize fund or directly through car sales, b2b deals/partnerships they may have on the ground and/or the desires of their main petro sponsors who also have their own commercial interests not limited to but including drawing a smiley face on places like Azerbaijan so we dont think about things like the number of people oppressed in order for us to gain a few cents discount at the pumps.

so its not just the greed of BE/FOM/CVC although they are the face of the problem so the convenient target for it.

but all that aside, it still does not explain why people who have track side balconies chose not to use them.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

he did indeed, although i would add that it also serves the sizable commercial interests of the teams. either indirectly via an increase in the size of the prize fund or directly through car sales, b2b deals/partnerships they may have on the ground and/or the desires of their main petro sponsors who also have their own commercial interests not limited to but including drawing a smiley face on places like Azerbaijan so we dont think about things like the number of people oppressed in order for us to gain a few cents discount at the pumps.

so its not just the greed of BE/FOM/CVC although they are the face of the problem so the convenient target for it.

but all that aside, it still does not explain why people who have track side balconies chose not to use them.

As I originally said, there's no grass roots motorsport. I's not part of Azerbaijani culture.

[chillibowl]

grassroots support is important but F1 is about as far away from grassroots motorsports as i am from Baku.

i dont know maybe im weird but if i had no cultural or traditional experience with motor racing and a billion dollars worth of futuristic cars came driving by my window/balcony and it was free for me to look at them, i would. people look at things which are different. its instinct.

actually wouldnt i be more inclined to look at them then someone who has an abundance of f1 knowledge and who has seen then many many times over?

anyways, i think there is more to the story here....rather an even greater underlying weakness within F1 that extends beyond the corrupt gov't/different culture trope being used to dismiss the lack of fan appeal F1 received in Baku.

its probably as simple as F1 being not nearly as exciting as i would like to believe it is nor as valuable as FOM thinks it is.

sorry for going so off topic

[Paradise City]

The GP promotes the country. It's featured on TV screens for three days and in the world's newspapers and so on. Hundreds of millions of people saw what seems to be a scenic city in a country that would otherwise be fairly obscure. That's fruitful for the country even if the grandstands aren't full and the domestic demand isn't there. Also it doesn't require a great white elephant facility to be built that's promptly rendered derelict or semi-derelict when the GP goes pop. For these reasons it's a smart new territory for F1 nothwithstanding the lukewarm domestic reception. This GP is quite unique in that sense.

[chillibowl]

fair point.

there was an article someone had posted a while back (perhaps a Motor Sport insert analyzing the sport?) comparing the costs of a street/city venue (Albert Park maybe) to a purpose built facility (Tilkedromes).

if memory serves the price over ten years (initial annual set up and planning costs vs capital investment) was very similar. i dont think it took into account about the price of demolishing a purpose built track once it becomes obsolete (or when F1 contract goes pop) but instead highlighted the main advantage being the economic impact a street race has for the local hospitality industry and general tourism advertising so yeah i generally agree that city tracks are (unfortunately) the more sensible approach.

i just dont think it worked here as im not sure how hosting a poorly attended international sporting event serves to promote the city.

for me i knew nothing of Baku until i heard it was hosting an F1 race. i think i might have even made posts suggesting that i thought that its cool that F1 is going somewhere that had some mystique left for me...the world is getting smaller and there are fewer and fewer remote places kind of thing.

after seeing the race (and i did like the layout) that opinion was completely demystified. sure the city looked nice but the lack of observable life/people/spectators made me think it must be a seriously boring and depressing place to be and i seriously question the economic impact aspect of it as well.

just my point of view but if promoting their city was their stated desire then that did not come across for me. actually had the opposite effect.

again, apologies for totally hijacking this thread.

[Purist]

As with a number large-scale events, many locals may actually leave town to avoid the hassle. It happens with Monaco. It also happens with EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

I'm fairly certain that those apartment blocks in central Baku cann't be cheap, and access to them during the weekend may have been rather restricted.

It wasn't huge, but there certainly were people out for the FIA GT races in 2013-14, and they had a number of shots during the coverage of those of people looking on from balconies.

With tricky access, some locals getting out of dodge for a few days, and a high price for admission, it doesn't make it so easy to have a large crowd. I also don't know what local transit is like. If they didn't have an efficient way to get larger numbers of people around and into the track, that would make it pretty rough. That track has a large footprint, probably 1.33 miles in the long axis, and 0.5 of a mile even on the shorter axis.

Initially, I think I saw that they built capacity for 30,000 spectators at Baku. That's not great, but then again, for all the stands you see at Yas Marina, the capacity there is only 55,000. (I'm guessing they made a big show of hospitality at Baku, hence why seating is listed as 18,500. To a lesser extent, I'm sure they do likewise each year at Yas Marina, and the regular seating then numbers 50,000.)

[Purist]

As for the race itself, I thought it was pretty good, especially for a street circuit. I gave it a 7.

The opening two laps saw significant overtaking, as you'd expect anywhere but Monaco. Out to Lap 7 or so, there were up to a handful of overtakes per circuit. To about Lap 32, the cameras caught 1-2 overtaking maneuvers each lap. In the final 20 laps, there were 12-15 passes, with maybe one or two mentioned that weren't shown directly on replay.

So, all in all, that doesn't sound too bad. And if you're going to complain that they were all due to DRS, well, that's like 90+ percent of ALL passes at EVERY track over the course of the F1 season, so get over it.

Now, when the Hamilton stuff started hitting the fan, yes, I wanted to throttle somebody at the FIA for that load of BS. That would have been REALLY bad if Hamilton had run over someone headed for the pits, because he glanced at his display at just the wrong moment on the straight. I mean, there's your example of worst case for distracted driving.

Anyway, it was a new track, which delivered some good racing. It's a circuit where mistakes are punished, and drivers have to be disciplined and precise. The closer surroundings aided in the sense of speed and maneuverability of the cars; this would have been even better if they'd used a different set of camera angles for their default, because they had more, good, speed shots than they regularly made use of, unfortunately.

The teams will learn from this year to take better advantage of the track's potential next year. Hopefully a few adjustments are made to the course, particularly at the pit-in and the run to Turn 15. I want to see them improve on what I thought was a good start in the first year of the event.

(And you guys know well enough how I feel about most Tilke-designed circuits, so this is unusually high praise from me, in a number of respects.)